Regarding Shutdowns And Rational Thinking

by Corbin Luna

The shutdown has come and gone. However, we're still hearing a lot of spin, innuendo, half-truths and lies about it. And since the shutdown was ended with temporary funding that expires February 8, it will undoubtedly rear its ugly head again. Consequently, it's time to lock and load some facts about shutdowns in general and this one in particular.

Shutdowns were made possible by the Budget Act of 1974. That Act was passed when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the President was a Republican, The Democrats made it quite clear they were passing it as a slap in the face to the President. The stated goals of the Act were “(1) strengthen and centralize Congress' budget authority; (2) reduce the President's impoundment authority.” Shutdown is the name of the procedure that is used if agreement on funding the budget is not reached, but the entire government is never shutdown.

The Senate filibuster rules also come into play. In 1970, when Democrats were in the majority in the Senate, they changed the Senate filibuster rules. Since then senators can filibuster without holding the floor, which means any senator can stop any bill. Democrats also changed the rules to allow a sixty senator majority to stop a filibuster. (They had a sixty-one seat majority at the time.) In summary, the arrogance of liberal Democrats wreaked havoc on the budget process and we've all been paying for it ever since. But it's not just the budget. It now takes sixty votes to pass almost every bill in the Senate.

Prior to 2018, there were eighteen shutdowns. Due to the issues and the fact that Democrats controlled the House during the first fifteen (all appropriations bills must originate in the House), I believe liberal Democrats were at fault. You may disagree based on the issues. That's fair. Read them and decide for yourself. I will say that in five of them, a Democrat was President and both houses were controlled by Democrats, including a sixty seat majority in the Senate.

The next two occurred while Clinton was President and Republicans controlled the House. The issue was the House demanded a balanced budget. Clinton refused. The shutdown ended when Clinton agreed to a seven year time-table for balancing the budget. He was reelected and, using the time-table, the budget was balanced in his second term. And ever since, Clinton has taken credit for balancing the budget.

The 2013 shutdown occurred because Republicans refused to fund the ACA. The ACA is a bad law. But good or bad, funding an existing law is a separate issue and for that reason the Republicans were rightly blamed for the 2013 shutdown. But at least what the Republicans wanted in 2013 was about funding the budget. What the Democrats want in the 2018 has nothing to do with the budget.

So, for example, when people like Schumer say the shutdown was the Republicans fault because they hold the Presidency and control Congress, it's spin because Republicans don't have a sixty seat majority in the Senate. But let's forget about all the liberal elite spin for a moment because this issue goes much deeper.

People are sick to death of all the side deals, double deals, spin, lies and finger-pointing that make Washington the “swamp.” Draining it was what Trump campaigned on and it struck a chord with voters. If a bill is about funding, it should pass or fail on its own merits and delaying it due to a side issue is a good example of why people voted for Trump.

During the 2013 shutdown, Obama said: "You don't like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election." That's what Republicans did. But instead of arguing their position, liberal Democrats have chosen to attack Trump personally and create problems they hope they can blame on him. That's what the shutdown was really about. Liberal Democrats shut down the government in hopes of blaming it on Trump and when they saw it wasn't working they passed the same funding they refused to pass prior to the shutdown.

The real problem facing this country is that the liberal elite who run the Democratic Party are so eaten up by an all-consuming hatred of Trump for winning the election they have become too irrational to even understand that what they're doing is exactly what got Trump elected. They keep saying it and doing it and all the little liberals who can't or won't accept reality just keep repeating it and rooting them on. And the end result of all their nonsense could easily be Trump's reelection. God help us all.

Corbin Luna

Corbin Luna is an old grouch who has been retired for twenty years and views politicians, political pundits and wannabes through a jaundiced eye. To repay this wonderful country for all it has given him he is devoting his golden years to improving the quality of life for everyone in the country by unmasking the spin, innuendo, half-truths and lies that continuously come from the liberal elite and are blindly repeated by the little liberals who are unable to think for themselves.